Team Burkina Faso stranded in Nelspruit

AS BURKINA Faso were frantically trying to overturn a red card handed to one of their key players ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday, the team was left stranded at the airport in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, with no flight to take them to Johannesburg yesterday.

CAPTION: File photo

The Stallions arrived at the Kruger Mpumalanga Airport yesterday afternoon only to find out that no arrangements had been made for their flight to Johannesburg, where they are supposed to train for the final against Nigeria.

The final takes place at the National Stadium.

The side spent hours at the airport after CAF promised to organise an alternative flight.

At the time of going to press last night, Joseph Mabhika, Local Organising Committee's delegate to the Burkinabe team, said: "We were promised that by 7.30pm there would be an aircraft here for us. It seemed they would organise a private jet, but we are still here and have had no feedback from CAF."

The team expressed concern that they would not get enough time to train ahead of Sunday's clash, having missed the chance to train yesterday.

"The entire team is here. The players are tired and we don't know when we will be able to leave for Johannesburg," said Mabhika. "This is unfair for the team and will make it very difficult to prepare for the important final."

This latest setback adds salt to injury for the Stallions following the controversial red card that was given to one of their star players, Jonathan Patroipa, in their semifinal victory against Ghana.

Burkina Faso have appealed the red card. Attempts to get confirmation on the decision of the appeal were unsuccessful at the time of going to press, but it is believed a decision will be made today.

COMMENTS [ 62 ]

@9janavy
Nigerians have themeselves to blame. We have foreigners all over Africa here, but people keep rejecting Nigerians only, why? I think other foreigner are not getting rejected because they behave. I think other foreigners are not getting bad mouthed by South Africans because they behave. The easiest thing here is for Nigerians to change their behaviour. We can talk about this all day and play the blame game all we can.

As for big brother, Nigerians also have themselves to blame. The show started very well with deserving people winning. Halfway, Nigerians then started to control the winnings, fixing votes. Just because Uti had his father passed away, Nigerians felt for him and made him win when clearly we could all see that Munya deserved to win that year. The following year, they then tried to balance things by making that muted Zim guy to win when we all saw Luclay deserved to win. Last year they had to balance things again and made South African win because they saw they we losing SA audience. We will see what is the strategy this year.

@auspus - I did not notice how much Ni.gerian were hated until after the birth of my second child when I had a nasty encounter with a black South African which resulting in me assaulting him.
Once I realized this,I made up my mind to get out of SA.
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Why are you still in our country to tell this story? Because I do not buy your nonsense.

Naija azz
One painful aspect of all this is that this hate is perpetuated by South African blacks.I get along with SA coloreds, SA Indians and SA whites but SA blacks,No ways.
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And the systematic destruction of our youth with drugs,the scamming of our people,the destruction of our infrastructure,the kidnapping, pimping and trafficking of local girl children, the badmouthing of our Nation is perpetuated by millions of Ni.gerian Southerners residing here who think that when fellow Africans welcome and trust them,they are fools and deserve to be scammed and disrespected.
Is it our fault that the whole world have also seen through their immoral azzes?

9janavy's story is sad. But no matter where you go as long as you are a foreigner you will face xenophobic attacks one way or the other, im sure even in Nigeria , some Nigerians are xenophobic towards foreigners living there. You going to migrate till when,? In life we are bound to face some form of ha te ,its natural we are human beings,its in us,there is tribalism,xenophobia,rascism etc,you just have to find a way to learn to live ith it,its there,all over the world,and its not gonna end anytime soon,not in this life time...still,its so sad :(

What a coincidence.No wonder the team has reached the finals.They've put up with a lot of nonsense from football organisations to referees and all the other losers.This is the dream team.I wish FIFA could really look into these things closely.I pity the Burkinades

@auspus - I did not notice how much Ni.gerian were hated until after the birth of my second child when I had a nasty encounter with a black South African which resulting in me assaulting him. Before then I had lived in dreamland and was oblivious of what was going on around me. About 5 years ago I started blogging online and almost immediately I noticed how much my people were hated here. I mean I got thrown out of forums for stating my nationality.

Once I realized this,I made up my mind to get out of SA. My wife however had different ideas, she told me to ignore what was going on and just focus on work and my family. I am a very sensitive person so I could not heed her advice. I kept on pushing her to move out of SA with me but she resisted saying she want to be close to her mum.

This went for sometime until our first child became a victim of a xenophobic attack in school. That was the last straw for me and finally my wife agreed to move. A week after that, my close friend’s 14 year old son was assaulted by a group of six South African kids who were his school mates because they realized he was a Ni.gerian. This is how bad the hate is now. The adults have passed on their poison to their kids so foreign children are no longer safe in school. Since last year I have applied for my family to migrate elsewhere and we are just waiting for a decision to be made by the embassy.

Permanent immigration processing can take anything from 1 year to 2 years depending on which country you are migrating to. I am also looking at going back to Ni.geria to settle down in case immigration does not work out. I have 4 possible outcomes but none of them involves remaining here. I honestly can not wait to leave as I have had enough of the hate and I do not want my children to be subject to such discrimination by their peers. SA is an extremely toxic environment of hate and intolerance.One painful aspect of all this is that this hate is perpetuated by South African blacks.I get along with SA coloreds, SA Indians and SA whites but SA blacks,No ways.
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@auspus - I did not notice how much Ni.gerian were hated until after the birth of my second child when I had a nasty encounter with a black South African which resulting in me assaulting him. Before then I had lived in dreamland and was oblivious of what was going on around me. About 5 years ago I started blogging online and almost immediately I noticed how much my people were hated here. I mean I got thrown out of forums for stating my nationality.

Once I realized this,I made up my mind to get out of SA. My wife however had different ideas, she told me to ignore what was going on and just focus on work and my family. I am a very sensitive person so I could not heed her advice. I kept on pushing her to move out of SA with me but she resisted saying she want to be close to her mum.

This went for sometime until our first child became a victim of a xenophobic attack in school. That was the last straw for me and finally my wife agreed to move. A week after that, my close friend’s 14 year old son was assaulted by a group of six South African kids who were his school mates because they realized he was a Ni.gerian. This is how bad the hate is now. The adults have passed on their poison to their kids so foreign children are no longer safe in school. Since last year I have applied for my family to migrate elsewhere and we are just waiting for a decision to be made by the embassy.

Permanent immigration processing can take anything from 1 year to 2 years depending on which country you are migrating to. I am also looking at going back to Ni.geria to settle down in case immigration does not work out. I have 4 possible outcomes but none of them involves remaining here. I honestly can not wait to leave as I have had enough of the hate and I do not want my children to be subject to such discrimination by their peers. SA is an extremely toxic environment of hate and intolerance.One painful aspect of all this is that this hate is perpetuated by South African blacks.I get along with SA coloreds, SA Indians and SA whites but SA blacks,No ways.

Whoever who is involved in delaying tactics for BF team is obviously not happy that they are in the final. Against all the odds BF will win this title. They have worked so hard from a word go. Nigerians got lucky as more of their goals came in penalties. After the game on sunday all Nigerians must pack and leave our country. If you can happen to walk around PTA (acardia/sunnyside), you will be shocked by what they are doing to our country. They are stout, they may be having something to do with BF crisis.

So, Nigerians bribed Mali players you say? LOL....Anyway, yes Mali did not seem to take that game seriously?
If you consider what happen between Ghana and Burkina faso, you can say that this whole tournament is just a scam...People are paying bribes left right centre.
Nigerians were struggling in group stages, suddenly now they are winning with 4-1? Something is not right here...